Jaded (14 page)

She glanced at him. “He’s a lucky man to have a friend like you.”

Byron laughed. “Most days I think he would call me a pain in the ass.”

They wandered the aisles, inspecting the vegetables, meats, and cheeses. Occasionally she added something to the basket, an evening meal taking shape in her mind.

As she finished haggling with a turnip merchant, Alek slipped a pendant in the shape of a butterfly around her neck. She stopped, surprised, and fingered the piece. “Thank you, Alek.”

Byron stood a short distance away, his eyes suddenly stormy.

Alek pointedly caught Byron’s gaze and said to her, “It reminded me of you.”

She blinked, saying nothing. The degree of testosterone in the air had suddenly ratcheted upward. Apparently the men were feeling a bit of rivalry for her affections. She wasn’t really surprised it had happened—just by the rate of speed at which it had occurred.

Yes, Alek Chaikoveii definitely
was
full of surprises.

In the middle of that competitive moment, some other unexpected sensation made the hair on the back of her neck rise. She went still, uneasy for a reason she couldn’t identify. Somewhere near her, she felt the pressure of someone’s gaze. Turning in a slow circle, she sought to identify the person watching her with such intenseness.

“Lilya? What’s wrong?” Alek glanced around the crowd.

The malevolent sensation eased. She stilled, gathering her thoughts. That had been so odd. “I don’t know. It felt like someone was staring at us, someone who meant us harm.”

Alek took her arm and drew her against him. “How could you sense such a thing?”

“It’s a throwback to my time on the streets. When you live that way, you learn to develop your intuition. It kept me alive.”

Byron had come up to protectively flank her opposite side. “I’m well known in Ulstrat. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that someone may not like my family as much as everyone else.”

She glanced at the basket, filled with fresh meat, vegetables, and a few dried spices. “We have what we need. Maybe we should return to the house.” She looked up into the heavily clouded sky. “The air has a hint of snow in it anyway.”

“Good idea.” Byron twined an arm around her waist and they made their way back to the carriage.

By the time they’d reached the house and Lilya was happily cooking in the warm kitchen and a roaring fire had been lit in the hearth, fat white snowflakes had begun to fall outside, quickly covering the tangled, dead garden beyond the window.

While morsels of sautéed fish simmered in a pan behind her, she took a moment to look out the window and enjoy the scene. She wished she could be here in the spring to take that garden in hand, and the thought made wistfulness wash over her.

Of course she wouldn’t be here in the spring; she’d be back in Milzyr and her time with Byron would be long over. There was a garden behind her house, but the thought of working it alone sent a pang through her.

“It smells delicious in here.”

She turned to find Alek behind her. The fish! Hurrying back to her slowly simmering fillets, she tended them and turned the heat down a smidge.

Setting her fork on the counter, she glanced at him and touched the pendant he’d bought for her. “Thank you for this.” Honestly, she really didn’t think he’d bought it for her. It had been a way to compete with Byron more than anything else.

“A beautiful piece of jewelry for a beautiful woman. Are you feeling better?”

“Better? Oh, you mean from sensing that unpleasantness at the market.” She shrugged. “Likely it was my own imagination.”

“Or, like you said, your intuition. I never discount such things.”

“Really? I would think that as a scholar you would trust logic more than some unprovable perception.”

“I don’t discount any possibilities. Life’s far too strange to be sure of anything.”

Smiling, she took a fortifying sip of her wine and lifted her glass. “Here’s to that.”

“Even three years after the revolution, those wealthier than others need to watch their step. There’s a lot of animosity out there.”

She set her glass on the counter and poked the fish again. “Byron seems well loved in Ulstrat, but I can see how he might still have to be careful. Blood ran hot during the revolution and with good reason. The Edaeii pillaged Rylisk for centuries, creating a gap between the lower and higher classes, impoverishing people. I know firsthand of that. The taxes the Edaeii levied on my father wiped out his shipping business and took everything we had.”

“Ironically, I feel the inventions the Tinkers’ Guild is releasing could do the same.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged and walked close to her. “The rich can afford them and the poor cannot. It breeds hostility. Unfairness. Widens the gap the revolution was meant to close.”

She pressed her lips together. Somewhere along the line she’d gone from being a have-not to a have, and the lines became harder to see when one sat on the privileged side of them. “You’re right, but the possibility never occurred to me.”

“It’s occurred to Gregorio Vikhin. We’ll see what he has to say about it.”

“If anyone can affect change in Rylisk, it’s Gregorio.” Indeed, he’d been the father of the revolution. She pulled the pan of fish off the cooking surface and checked the vegetables. “Dinner is ready.”

“Fantastic. I’m starving.”

She smiled, but her smile faded when she saw the look on his face. The hunger in his eyes seemed to have nothing to do with food.

He moved toward her, twining a hand around her waist and bringing his head close to hers. She stiffened as his lips pressed to hers, wondering what he would do, but this kiss lacked the desperate heat of the one in the garden and she relaxed.

Threading her fingers through the hair at his nape, she tilted her head a little for a better angle and kissed him back with interest.

Byron’s voice came from the corridor and they broke the kiss and backed away from each other almost guiltily.

Silly
. They had nothing to feel guilty about.

Alek took the bowl of vegetables and she slid the fish onto a platter to serve . . . her hands shaking.

 

 

Ivan stood outside the Andropov family estate, snowflakes catching in his eyelashes, melting on his cheeks, and dropping onto the wool of his long coat. The place was immense and rich-looking—
of course
. Nothing Andropov owned was ever second best.

Thick, gray stone walls marked the edges of the property, matching the gray stone of the house. In the warmer months Ivan felt certain the grass and gardens were lush and green, not the dead tangle they were now.

Lights flickered from inside the mansion, marking the places in the huge structure where Byron, Lilya, and that other man were likely spending most of their time. It looked cozy—nice.

Lilya didn’t deserve
nice
.

He’d followed them to the market that morning and had seen there was not just one man in the house with Lilya, but two. The other man was of an age with Byron, good-looking. Ivan doubted he was low-born. Not judging by the way he dressed or carried himself.

More than likely his companion was Alek Chaikoveii, Andropov’s closest friend. He hadn’t brought any of his men with him to do legwork for him, but that was no matter. If one had enough money, one could find out anything. He would have the man’s identity verified by tomorrow.

Maybe there was more than just one man for him to kill.

S
o what are we studying today?” Lilya tried not to smile as she flipped open the book they’d been working from and peered over the rim of the reading glasses she’d found in Byron’s room.

Alek looked up from the book he was reading, stared, and then burst out laughing.

“What’s wrong?” The picture of innocence, she looked up at him through the glasses that made everything look a little hazy. “Why are you laughing?” Unable to hold it in, she laughed herself, and then she snorted.
Loud
. Her hand flew to her mouth. She paused, arrested with surprise for a moment, and then burst into fresh laughter.

Alek laughed harder.

They both dissolved into helpless mirth that fed off each other’s reactions. It was the kind of laugh that comes from a small thing and ends up inexplicably big, feeding an emotional delight that washes away stress. The kind of cathartic laughter that’s difficult to stop. It felt really, really good and she realized she’d needed it as much as Alek.

The glasses teetered on the tip of her nose. They fell off and she caught them before they could hit the table and break.

Finally, they both calmed. He picked up the glasses. “These are way too big for you. Byron’s got a huge head. You looked like an owl.”

She smiled. She’d been trying to get a laugh out of him and she’d succeeded with interest. It was a good sign that such a simple, silly thing had drawn amusement from him. “I can’t see out of them either. I was trying to look more like you is all.”

He set the glasses aside. “What a pity. Don’t do that. I think you’re pretty.”

“Thank you.” She tapped the book. “Seriously, now, what are we studying?”

“Let’s see.” He looked down at the book and began to thumb through pages.

Just then Byron walked into the room. “I’m headed into town for a few things.”

“Byron, why don’t you hire someone to do that?” asked Alek, not looking up from the book. “You’d be providing jobs for people who could use the work.”

Lilya lightly hit Alek’s upper arm. “That’s exactly what I told him!”

“I’d rather do things myself and maintain my privacy. I’ll be back later.” He leaned over and kissed Lilya’s cheek, which made her flush with pleasure. “I gave Mara the night off again. Since you cooked last night, I’m cooking dinner tonight.”

Alek groaned.

Byron laughed as he left the room. “I’m not
that
bad.”

“Yes, you are,” Alek called.

The front door slammed a moment later.

Lilya watched Alek, who was still thumbing through the book, and chewed the edge of her thumbnail. “Is he really that bad?”

Alek looked up at her. “I hope you brought indigestion medicine with you.”

She winced. “He just doesn’t know it?”

“No and I humor him . . . mostly.” He shrugged and looked down at the book again. “He tries.”

“Do you think the reason he doesn’t hire servants is really because he values his privacy so much?”

“It’s that, but it’s also a measure of his manliness.”

She nodded. “I suspected as much. He thinks a man should do everything for himself. Typical of a man like Byron, though not typical of a wealthy person.”

“True.” Alek nodded. Then stabbed the book with his finger. “Here we are, the rise of the Edaeii family and the decline of magick. It’s a fascinating period of Ryliskian history. We can take a look at this.”

She crowded nearer to him and looked down at the book. He was very close to her. Every day he seemed to grow closer. Now his arm was right next to hers. It was nice. Alek had a beautiful body; that was clear enough from the way it moved beneath his clothes.

She looked up at him, remembering what she’d been meaning to ask. “Alek, speaking of behaviors not typical of wealthy men, why aren’t you and Byron skinny and weak-looking?”

He looked up at her, blinking behind his glasses. “Excuse me?”

“You and Byron both come from wealthy families. It’s not as if you have to do physical labor to survive. And neither of you, as far as I know, were ever in the guard or trained as soldiers. Byron is doing a lot of work around this house, which could explain his build, but
you
I am especially perplexed by, since you spend all your time with books. So, by all expectations, you both shouldn’t be as”—she eyed his upper arms—“
robust
as you are.”

He gave a short laugh and took off his glasses, setting them aside to rub the bridge of his nose. “Your honesty can be very astringent sometimes, Lilya.”

“I’m giving you a compliment.”

“I’m glad you think we’re robust and I’m very glad you don’t think we’re . . . what did you say . . . ‘skinny and weak-looking’? The reason we’re in shape is crossball. Byron and I play it almost every week. And you probably haven’t seen it yet, but Byron has a room here in the house with equipment that helps us to stay in shape so we can compete physically. There’s a crossball team here in Ulstrat that we both play for. In fact, the Andropov family built the stadium.”

She nodded. “That makes sense. Nature is rarely so kind as to bestow bodies like yours for free. I figured there had to be a reason behind your builds.”

His lips twisted. “Yet we’re still the idle rich, playing games with our massive amounts of free time.”

“Crossball is entirely respectable. It’s a game played across all the social spectrums. I would even go so far as to say it brings the low- and high-born together.”